Bound (Soldiers of Darkness MC Book 3)

by Michelle Betham

  I see Phil throw me that look again out the corner of his eye and he’s seriously pissing me off now. I swing around on my chair and I raise my eyebrows, but he just shrugs.

  “What?”

  “That look you keep giving me.”

  “I’m not giving you any kind of look, Gabriel. Let’s just focus on what’s happening here, OK? Because the sooner this shit is over with the better.”

  “You think I’ve got feelings for her, right?”

  “Jesus, Gabe…”

  “I can care about the people we throw into these situations, there’s no rule anywhere that says I can’t do that.”

  “No. I guess not. You’ve just never cared before, that’s all.”

  I’m leaving it there. I’m ending this now.

  I do care about Skye. I care a lot about Skye.

  But that’s all I can do.

  Care.

  Falling in love, that was never an option…

  Skye

  I really need to get out of here now. I need to get back to the house, away from Theo and his crazy plan because it wouldn’t work. It couldn’t work. They’re going to be watching him even more closely now, because they heard all that, and the most terrifying thing of all is that if they hadn’t; if no one had actually heard what Theo had asked me to do, I think I might actually have gone with him. What would either of us have had to lose? Under different circumstances? But in reality, I have everything to lose, what little I have left, anyway. Theo’s already lost it. And he’s about to lose even more and I can’t handle the guilt any longer. I don’t want to be around him, I don’t want to be in a position where he’s wearing me down and making me wish everything was different. It isn’t. It can’t be.

  “Skye…”

  I feel his hand gently touch my thigh but I don’t turn around. I stay facing the tree, my forehead resting against the trunk and I keep my eyes closed. “We should go home, Theo.”

  “Home?” He laughs that cold and cynical laugh again, and I feel my insides twist up into a knot of panic and guilt and nerves so strong I can barely breathe. “Do we even have a home?”

  “You will have. Soon.”

  Just saying the words kills me, because the only home he’s going to have is one behind bars, unless Cole Rockwell’s plans involve messing this whole thing up, because he has something planned. It’s just that, nobody knows what. And I should speak up, I should tell Gabriel what I know, I should. But I’m too scared. I’m too fucking weak.

  I slowly turn around and I look at Theo. With those piercing blue eyes and that kind soul he really is a beautiful man. And all he did was make one wrong move, one stupid mistake, and he lost it all.

  “I want to go now, Theo. Please.”

  “OK.” He leans in to kiss me but I move away, I can’t do this, it isn’t fair. I thought it might help me distance myself from Gabriel but I know that’s never going to happen now. I can’t distance myself from a man I’m falling in love with; impossible love. But using another man to try and mask those feelings is wrong. “Listen, Skye… what happened last night…”

  “It was Cole Rockwell playing twisted games, Theo, that’s all.”

  “Did he touch you?”

  “No.”

  And that still confuses me – why Cole didn’t touch me. But then I remember the twisted game he was playing, knowing what he knows about me and Gabriel.

  “He didn’t touch me. I told you what he made me do, before you came in, and that’s all that happened. I’m just hoping he doesn’t want anything else because I’m tired of this now.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

  He looks at me, and he gently touches my cheek, his fingertips running lightly over my skin. And it’s a nice feeling. A safe feeling. But he doesn’t make my heart race or my stomach flip like Gabriel does. Gabriel touches me and I want him like I’ve never wanted anyone before. But is that only because I can’t have him? Because this messed up situation is fucking with all our heads?

  “When I’m gone, Skye… where are you gonna go?”

  “I don’t know.” And that’s the truth. It’s probably the first thing I’ve said to him that isn’t based on a lie. That, and the fact I’m sorry. When I tell him that I mean it. I’m so fucking sorry. “But I can’t stay here.”

  I have no choice.

  I’m at the mercy of the FBI.

  Or maybe Cole Rockwell will get to me first; carry out his threat to make sure I get what I deserve.

  All I know is everything’s about to come to an end.

  For everyone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Gabriel

  So now we know a time. We know when and where it’s all going to take place. We have everything set and ready to go, but we’re also keeping a very close eye on all those involved. I’m not messing this up, it isn’t happening. Too much is at stake for us to fuck it all up at the final hurdle.

  “You’re quiet.”

  She looks up at me. “Do you blame me?”

  I walk over to her as she runs her fingers lightly over the chrome handlebars of my Harley Davidson. This is the last time I’ll meet her, like this. The last time she’ll come to me, like this. Tomorrow, when all this is over, there’ll be a de-brief and then the Marshals will take her away to start that new life we promised her, if everything goes to plan.

  “A Harley 1200 Custom, huh?”

  I throw her a small smile and dig my hands into my pockets. “You know your bikes.”

  “What kind of a biker chick would I be if I didn’t?”

  She’s got her tongue in her cheek as she says that, and I smile again, laughing quietly.

  “You never told me you had one, though.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  Her eyes lock on mine, the corner of her mouth twisting up into a slight smirk.

  “I guess all these years working biker gangs – something must’ve got inside my head, huh?” I come a little closer, reaching out to touch the black leather seat. “Once I got on one of these things, I kind of fell in love. There’s a very different kind of freedom you feel, when you ride. Call it my guilty pleasure. My escape.”

  “Now it’s got you, it never leaves you. You know that, don’t you?”

  I briefly drop my gaze, watching as my fingers continue to run over the black leather. But I don’t say anything. And then I slowly look back up and my eyes once more meet hers. “Is there something wrong, Skye?”

  She pauses for a couple of long beats, and the atmosphere is changing by the second, I can feel it. “You tell me, Gabriel. You heard it all.”

  “Skye, baby…”

  “I am sending him down, and it kills me. Or, at least…”

  She stops talking and she looks away, and I frown as I keep my eyes on her. “At least, what? Skye? Is there something you want to tell me?”

  She shakes her head, but she can’t look at me.

  “I’m just tired, Gabriel. That’s all. I didn’t expect it to be this hard.”

  I reach out and take her hand and she squeezes my fingers tight. I want her one more time. I can’t pretend that I don’t. I tried to shut it all down, to push her to the back of my mind but how the hell was I ever gonna do that? When every day has been full of her. And after tomorrow she won’t be here anymore, I’ll never see her again, so I want her, one more time.

  She turns to look at me, and I wish to God we weren’t in this messed up situation. But we are. And we just have to deal with it.

  “I know you’re scared, baby, but it’s almost over now.”

  She drops her gaze once more, her eyes focused on our joined hands. “What if it all goes wrong?”

  “It’s not gonna go wrong, Skye. Why would it go wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t… I don’t know. But you know the kind of people you’re dealing with here, and Cole Rockwell…”

  Again she abruptly stops talking, and again she drops her gaze, and I give her hand a little squeeze but it doesn’t make her look at me.


  “What about Cole Rockwell? Skye?”

  “He’s unstable, Gabriel.” She finally looks up and her eyes lock with mine. “He’s unpredictable. Dangerous.”

  “You think we don’t know that? Baby, I’ve been watching that man for a long time now. I’ve been watching him and Mack Slayer, I know how they operate, believe me.”

  “Do you?”

  There’s something in her eyes here that I can’t read, and I narrow mine as I look right at her. “Is there something wrong, Skye?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I just feel guilty, about what I’m doing to Theo.”

  “Theo brought everything on himself. And you need to remember that.”

  “Like I brought everything on myself?”

  “That isn’t what I said.”

  “But it’s true. Jesus, this is so fucked up…”

  She lets go of my hand and walks back inside the house, folding her arms as she leans back against the kitchen counter. I didn’t want her at the safe house tonight. I wanted her here, in mine. Although she can’t sleep here. I have to take her back, to that place, for one more night. I’ll never get to wake up next to her, but that’s just the shit way this has all played out.

  I follow her inside, closing the back door behind me, and she looks at me. Right at me. And my heart breaks a million times over.

  “I’m sorry, Gabriel.”

  “What for?”

  She’s still holding my gaze, and then she shrugs, and she looks down, her arms still crossed firmly against herself. And she says nothing. She doesn’t reply, she keeps her eyes down, and I walk over to her, and I tuck a finger under her chin and I slowly push her head up so she’s looking at me. And then I lean in and I kiss her, and she doesn’t fight it. She knows this is it, the last time we can be together, like this. And it’s still wrong, all of it, but I don’t think either of us care anymore.

  “I need a shower,” she murmurs, her mouth touching mine as she speaks and I smile, and she returns it, and she takes my hand and leads me to the bathroom.

  I watch as she slips out of her dress, and I take in every inch of her naked body, I want to remember her like this, naked and beautiful, this woman I can never have. I watch as she steps into the shower, and as the jets of water splash over her skin I tear off my clothes and I get in there with her, pulling her against me with a force that almost knocks the breath out of her.

  She clings onto me as we kiss, and then I lift her up and push her back against the wall, and the second my cock sinks into her it’s like that fix I’ve been craving has finally been satisfied.

  Her fingers dig into my flesh as I thrust into her, the water cascading over us, thundering down onto the tiled floor, our skin wet and slippery and I keep hold of her as her legs wrap tighter around my hips, crushing me against her.

  Her cries echo off the bathroom walls, not even the sound of the water can drown her out, and it’s a beautiful noise. And when her mouth touches mine and she moans quietly I feel it vibrate into me, and it causes me to thrust even harder, her fingernails scraping my shoulders as she tenses up and then explodes in my arms, her body shuddering and jerking as she screams out my name. It takes just seconds for me to follow, and when I come it’s hard and fast and it knocks the breath right out of me. It’s all consuming as I feel myself spilling out inside her, and she squeezes my cock and I’m still coming, and she’s still scratching my skin and kissing my mouth and I swear I don’t know how I’m gonna go cold turkey on this one. Because tomorrow, that’s what I have to do.

  It’s over, and she buries her face in my hair and releases her grip on me only slightly as we both try to regain some calm. Our breathing’s heavy, ragged, and I lower her down but she doesn’t let go of me. And then she looks up into my eyes and I feel my heart shatter.

  She doesn’t belong in my world.

  Right now she doesn’t belong in any world.

  I’m falling in love with a woman I can’t have.

  And I think she’s falling in love with me…

  Theo

  Mack slides the passports over to me and I take them, quickly flipping them open to check them. I’m holding mine and Dom’s new identities in my hands. There’s no going back now.

  “Cole’s kept his word so far,” Mack says, lifting his feet up onto the table as he lights up a cigarette. “So we’re all straight on the way this is gonna play out, right?”

  He looks around the table at each and every club member, waiting until they’ve acknowledged his question before he moves onto the next one. And then he comes to me, and his eyes fix on mine.

  “You good with everything, Theo?”

  I look down at the passports in my hand, then back up at Mack, and I nod. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

  “Vinny and Lopo are gonna have the van standing by, and once Dom’s been sprung they’ll get you both to the plane as quickly as they can, we’ve got a time limit on this one.” He once more addresses the wider room, not just me. “We don’t need no fuck ups, OK? ‘Cause we only have a small window before that plane needs to go, don’t think for one minute law enforcement won’t be down on that site like flies round shit once they realize what’s happened. So we all need to be outta there, tracks covered. I’m assuming everyone knows their roles?”

  Again, he looks from brother to brother, making sure each and every one of them knows what they’re supposed to be doing. Between him and Cole they’ve got the two clubs running this thing with an almost military-like precision. I can’t see what could go wrong. But at the same time, I know exactly what could go wrong. I find it hard to believe that they can get away with this kind of thing, and my blood runs cold at the thought of more people – innocent people, maybe – getting hurt, or worse, losing their lives because of my selfish need to avenge my own guilt. But I have to do this now. If Skye had agreed to run with me, to get out of this place and find somewhere new to start again, we’d be far away from here by now, just the two of us. And there isn’t a part of me that doesn’t wish that had happened. But that was just me clinging onto a pointless, impossible hope. This is the reality.

  “OK.”

  Mack’s voice jolts me from my thoughts and I slide the passports into the back pocket of my jeans, sitting back in my chair as Mack ties up this last church before tomorrow night.

  “Right. We all know what we’re doing now so, get the hell outta here. Go home. Get some rest. Tomorrow we’re playing prison break.”

  His flippancy worries me slightly, but at the same time I know he isn’t treating this lightly. He knows all it takes is for one piece of this carefully put together jigsaw to fall out of place and everything is fucked, so I shouldn’t be concerned. I should be grateful I have someone like him taking charge. Cole Rockwell, not so much. He’s still a worry. But I have to trust Mack. That’s all I can do.

  “Theo… stay where you are, kiddo.”

  Mack waits until everyone else has left before he speaks again. And he’s still sitting at the head of the table, his cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, his dark eyes fixed on me.

  “You OK? After last night?”

  “Cole Rockwell’s nothing more than a sick individual who needs taking down, Mack.”

  “Maybe so, but not right now. And after tomorrow he ain’t gonna be your concern no more.”

  “You still gonna work with him? After this is done?”

  “That ain’t your concern either.” He leans forward and takes a long drag on his cigarette. “Listen, son, you let me deal with Cole, all right? And when I asked if you were OK I wasn’t just talking about Cole.”

  I briefly drop my gaze, staring down at a mess of scrawled scratches on the table. “Skye.”

  “Yeah. Skye.”

  I look back up at Mack, and his eyes are still fixed on me. “Is she gonna be OK, Mack?”

  He shrugs, stands up, and walks over to the window. “I don’t even know if she’s gonna stay ‘round here.” He stubs his cigarette out on the wall besi
de him, opens the window and tosses the butt outside.

  “She said she was gonna leave.”

  He turns around and raises an eyebrow. “You been having some deep and meaningfuls, huh?”

  “I just wanted to know if she was gonna stick around. Doesn’t seem like she wants to.”

  “Well, I ain’t gonna stop her if she wants to stick around, and I’ll make sure she knows that. She’s welcome to stay. I’ll make sure she’s OK.”

  I push back my chair and make for the door. I’m tired, and I don’t think I’m gonna get all that much sleep anyway but I’ve got to try.

  Tomorrow’s a big day.

  The day Theo Blane dies.

  Skye

  I’m thirty-two years old and I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. Because I’ve never felt what Gabriel makes me feel, and I’m angry that I’m feeling it now; feeling it for a man I can’t fucking have. And as I close my eyes and feel him push inside me, feel his fingers slide between mine as he pushes deep and thrusts slow my emotions are so messed up, so all over the place I can barely think straight. He’s fucking me one final time and I am taking it, and I’m banking it, and I’m going to relive it so many times until it all starts to fade away. Until that new life he promised me kicks in and he’s nothing more than a vague memory.

  His hand on my knee pushes my leg back against my stomach and he sinks deeper into me, and I cry out as a small stab of pain cuts across me, but it’s followed by the most incredible wave of intense pleasure, turning that cry into a low, guttural groan and I grip his fingers tight as I feel him move inside me.

  His breath is warm on my neck, his mouth leaving tiny kisses all over my skin, and every time he does that a million goose bumps break out and I shiver, and I don’t want to let him go, I don’t. That’s the thing that terrifies me the most, letting him go. But I have to. I got in too deep, we both did. But it has to end. It all has to end.

  His fingers tighten around mine as he comes, a slower more controlled climax than before, in the shower; it’s so calm it’s an almost cathartic experience. And I close my eyes and arch my back and push my hips up against him as I take everything he’s giving me, until I feel my own climax take hold, gripping every nerve-ending like a vice, and that wave engulfs me, overwhelms me with a beautiful, white-hot pain that makes me cry out again.